Index Effect Raises New Concerns

Index Effect Raises New Concerns

Paul Amery

December 05, 2013

In the 1970s an economic advisor to the Bank of England defined a rule that is still used. According to Charles Goodhart, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. Read more of this post

How Turkey’s Troubles Could Spread in Emerging Markets

DECEMBER 20, 2013, 7:32 PM

How Turkey’s Troubles Could Spread in Emerging Markets

By LANDON THOMAS JR.

As Turkey struggles to contain its latest political crisis, fears of a run on its currency — dormant since the summer — have quickly re-emerged. After arrests this week of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political and economic allies, the Turkish lira has plunged. The dollar reached a high of 2.092 against the lira, as foreign investors sold Turkish stocks and bonds and Turks shifted their savings into dollars. Read more of this post

Fidelity’s feverish fee cuts a bid to cure market share woes; How low will it go? Battle against Vanguard becomes a war of basis points

Fidelity’s feverish fee cuts a bid to cure market share woes

How low will it go? Battle against Vanguard becomes a war of basis points

By Jason Kephart   |  December 6, 2013 – 11:54 am EST

“Vanguarditis,” the asset manager infection that leads to fee cuts and happier advisers, has worked its way into the heart of the Boston Behemoth. Over the past few weeks, Fidelity Investments has made strategic fee cuts and launched new products to ensure that its products are the cheapest in two categories in which the Vanguard Group Inc. has been eating their lunch for a decade. Read more of this post

Christmas trees are a small but highly profitable part of the timber industry, where profit can be decades in coming

December 20, 2013

How Lucrative Thy Branches

By PAUL SULLIVAN

Chris Botek, a tree grower in Leighton, Pa., is used to people being shocked by how much his Christmas trees cost. “People come from the city and they’re used to paying $150 to $200 a tree,” he said. They look at you and say, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” Mr. Botek gets $6.25 a foot — that’s $50 for a fresher version of that eight-foot tree sitting on an urban sidewalk. Read more of this post

Investment Fads and Themes, 1996-2013

Investment Fads and Themes, 1996-2013

Joshua M Brown

December 12th, 2013

Another year in the books and I’ve updated my Investing Fads and Themes by Year guide accordingly. It begins with 1996 because that was my first summer working on The Street and my earliest exposure to the market. I do this every December because I agree with the eminent philosopher Bob Marley when he reminds us “If you know your history, then you would know where you’re coming from.” If we don’t keep tabs and learn from the lunacy that grips us from year to year, then how can we truly say that we’ve grown as investors? Read more of this post

Death of the contrarian

Death of the contrarian

Dan McCrum

| Dec 19 16:30 | 3 comments | Share

It has been a year to jump on a bandwagon sailing with the wind at the heart of the pack. Momentum, baby. Let Citi paint you a picture: A two-year, 40 per cent rally in global equities is not the time to be a contrarian (unless you were the bold type calling for it back in the dog days of 2012). Still, Citi warns that the contrarians do tend to do well in January, and they won’t give up: Read more of this post

Bursting the Stock-Market-Bubble Bubble

Bursting the Stock-Market-Bubble Bubble

JUSTIN LAHART

Dec. 15, 2013 1:46 p.m. ET

No, stocks are not in a bubble. But that doesn’t mean investors must like them. With the S&P 500 up a blistering 25% this year, and with stocks like Tesla MotorsTSLA +1.79% sporting valuations that strain belief, the word “bubble” has been getting batted around a lot lately. Case in point: Over the past three months, a Factiva search returns 391 news articles with “bubble” in close proximity to “stock market”, up from 130 over the same period last year. Read more of this post

Is the stock market still a playground for the rich? Everyday investors are wary of stock investing

Dec. 13, 2013, 6:15 a.m. EST

Is the stock market still a playground for the rich?

Opinion: Everyday investors are wary of stock investing

By Howard Gold

As stocks keep hitting new milestones, more and more pundits worry we’re in another stock market bubble.

They cite record margin debt, euphoria over initial public offerings like that of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR)  , and, of course, the big run we’ve already seen in the major indices. Read more of this post